Let’s chat about formal education in the field of herbalism, a subset of alternative and complementary medicine.

I attended Trinity School of Natural Health from 2017-2018 and completed their Master Herbalist program, earning my diploma.

The Master Herbalist diploma program I completed is no longer available, as Trinity updated their program offerings in late 2017. They still offer an herbalist certificate, but it is very short (4 months) and doesn’t include the spectrum of courses mine did.

In 2017, I didn’t understand the importance of accreditation with respect to colleges and universities.

In the United States of America, if you want your college degree or diploma to count as valid in the career world, it must be from an educational institution that is regionally or nationally accredited.

That’s where Trinity School of Natural Health falls short. They are not regionally or nationally accredited.

The US Department of Education (USDOE) and Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) oversee both regional and national accreditation.

Regional accreditation is the gold standard for universities in the US. Universities in the United States that are primarily state-owned and not-for-profit can obtain accreditation from one of the following six regional accrediting agencies.

• Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE)
  NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, and Washington D.C.
• New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)
  CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT
• Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU)
  AK, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA
• Higher Learning Commission (HLC)
  AR, AZ, CO, IO, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, OK, NM, SD, WI, WV, WY
• Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS)
  FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, AL, TN, TX, VA
  U.S. students in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America
• Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC)
  CA, HI
  The Hawaiian territories of Guam, American Samoa, Northern Marianas Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, the Pacific Rim, East Asia, and parts of the Pacific and East Asia

National accreditation is primarily for vocational and trade programs, distance learning, and religious universities that are typically for-profit and not state-owned. Currently, the following national accrediting agencies are authorized by the USDOE and CHEA to offer national accreditation.

• Distance Education & Training Council (DETC)
• Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC)
• Council on Occupational Education (COE)
• Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, Accreditation Commission (TRACS)
• Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training (ACCET)
• Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE)
• Association of Advanced Rabbinical and Talmudic Schools (AARTS)
• Council on Occupational Education (COE)
• Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC)
  * The University of the People and the American College of Health Sciences are two examples of universities nationally accredited by DEAC
• National Accrediting Commission of Career Arts and Sciences (NACCS)
• Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS)

Like a degree from a regionally accredited college, degree from a nationally accredited college will be accepted by employers. The primary downside is credits from a nationally accredited college can’t transfer to regionally accredited colleges. Also, the the financial aid options for nationally accredited institutions are not as plentiful.

If your college degree or diploma is not from a university that is regionally or nationally accredited, it will not be accepted in the career world.

*In July 2020, the USDOE passed legislation that the USDOE will no longer make a distinction between regional and national accreditation. Both are considered institutional accreditation now, one in the same (source).

Trinity School of Natural Health is a for-profit, nontraditional university that is not accredited regionally or nationally. They offer certificate and diploma programs in different niches of alternative and complementary medicine. When you complete a program through Trinity, you will spend a lot of money on an education and diploma that you can’t use in your career.

Before I give my final takeaway of Trinity’s Master Herbalist Program, though, let’s explore the content of the courses I completed.

1. Medical Jurisprudence

This was a shorter, albeit necessary course defining a clinical herbalist’s legal responsibilities. More or less, it explained the legal backing behind a clinical herbalist’s right to practice, but clearly stated what a clinical herbalist cannot legally do (eg. practice medicine, see “patients”, diagnose, treat, or cure).

My rating: 8/10

2. Living Chemistry

Textbook: Your Health, Your Choice – Dr. M. Ted Morter, Jr.

This course had pros and cons, but definitely more cons.

On the one hand, the textbook does a phenomenal job of figuratively walking you through the human digestive system. It explains each and every chemical reaction that contributes to digestion, the assimilation of nutrients, and the production of energy.

On the other hand, the author of the textbook clearly promotes a raw vegan diet (80/10/10). This is known to be a rather harmful and extreme diet. His writing style is a bit too casual for the subject – verging on cheesy – and he doesn’t present any real evidence for the majority of his health claims.

It was eyeopening to see the chemical breakdown of how and why a diet containing excessive animal products contributes to the development of chronic disease, but the evidence presented seems only to suggest that we should reduce consumption of animal products and increase consumption of fruits and vegetables –

Not eat a raw vegan diet.

My rating: 4/10

3. Practical Herbalism

Textbook: Practical Herbalism – Philip Fritchey

This might have been my favorite course out of the entire program.

It was so incredibly helpful and I still use the textbook regularly – at home, when writing blog posts, and seeing clients.

The beginning of the textbook takes you through a history of the use of herbs as medicine, from ancient times through the 21st century.

I was shocked to discover the way allopathic medicine had forcibly pushed itself to become the only source of medical care legally and in the eyes of the general public in the 20th century. At the same time, I was encouraged to see how complementary and integrative medicine seemed to be making a comeback in recent years.

Next, it gives you an in-depth guide to making the most common herbal preparations yourself. (infusion, decoction, tincture, oil, capsule, etc.)

After that, it gives an alphabetical list of herbal actions and lists quite a few of the most common herbs under each category. I can’t even begin to tell you how often I refer to that list. It is invaluable.

The rest of the book contains thorough descriptions of the history, chemical constituents, herbal actions, uses, and contraindications of 46 western medicinal plants.

My rating: 10/10

4. Nutrition and Health

Textbook: Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 5th Edition – Phyllis A. Balch

This textbook – the kind that makes you cry on the inside and wonder how in the world you’re going to learn and remember basically an infinite amount of information to pass your exams – has exactly 787 massive pages.

I didn’t love it as coursework, but it is an invaluable tool for me now.

Part one of the book is divided into bite-sized sections about nutrition, diet, and wellness; vitamins, minerals, air, water, amino acids, antioxidants, enzymes, natural food supplements, herbs, and drug interactions.

One of the most helpful tools in this section is that for each of the herbs discussed in the “herbs” chapter, it lists the herbal actions, chemical breakdown, and whether or not they are contraindicated in pregnancy, plus other contraindications. We need more resources like that!

Part two of the book lists approximately every disease and disorder known to mankind and contains a detailed explanation of each, plus describes an exhaustive number of complementary remedies for every one of them.

Like I said, I hated it as a textbook, but it’s extremely useful now.

My rating: 9/10

5. Anatomy and Physiology, Intermediate

Textbook: Atlas of the Human Body – Takeo Takahashi

This was your average anatomy and physiology overview – fairly interesting and necessary to know. It’s a decent textbook, easy to understand and take notes on.

My rating: 8/10

6. Herbal Materia Medica

Textbook: Nutritional Herbology – Mark Pedersen

I was jumping up and down on the inside, eagerly awaiting this course for months before it began. It sounded so cool and didn’t disappoint.

The book describes each vitamin and mineral in depth and under each one lists its richest herbal sources, with numeric levels. It was incredible to learn how even the most common and invasive of plants can provide some of the highest levels of essential vitamins and minerals we can get through food.

The second part of the book contains detailed descriptions of the history, chemical constituents, vitamin and mineral levels, herbal actions, uses, and contraindications of 93 western medicinal plants.

The third section of the textbook covers an exhaustive number of traditional herbal combinations for a wide variety of conditions.

My rating: 10/10

7. Herbs of the Bible

Textbook: Herbs of the Bible – James A. Duke, Ph.D.

This course explored the plants written about in ancient Biblical text, discussing their history, traditional use, and chemical constituents.

The textbook approaches herbology from a unique perspective and I truly enjoyed reading it. That being said, I haven’t found it to be practically useful – for blog posts, seeing clients, making herbal medicine at home, or really anything else.

Rating: 7/10

8. Kinesiology

Textbook: The Ultimate Healing System – Donald Lepore, N.D.

I’m not exaggerating when I say this textbook is the worst thing I have ever read in my life.

To be fair, it does a decent job explaining how to do applied kinesiology, which was mildly interesting at the time, but isn’t relevant to me anymore. It also has two very nice chapters discussing the discoveries of vitamins and minerals, which was neat to learn about. The rest of the book is a joke.

Every other textbook (except Your Health, Your Choice) from my coursework is filled to the brim with sources and scientific data, but this book is a cesspool of far-fetched claims with absolutely no backing whatsoever – not even historical use.

Pick it up and discover some priceless gems, like the “fact” that IgE allergies have vitamin and mineral antidotes (because the author believes its true), so apparently by taking vitamin E, you can magically make your wheat allergy disappear. Who knew? Lol…in the most pathetic sense possible.

My rating: 1/10

9. Herbal Preparations

Textbook: The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook – James Green, Herbalist

This course was essentially herbal medicine-making for beginners.

The textbook explains what tools you’ll need, and from there, how to make everything from medicated oils and decoctions, to flower essences and glycerites, in addition to the more common tinctures and infusions. It breaks the process of making herbal medicine down chemically, which for a science nerd like myself, was awesome.

It’s extremely easy to understand, and as a bonus, the author is hilarious, so it’s a fun guide.

I use it all the time for writing blog posts and making my own herbal preparations at home, so the book really holds its value.

My rating: 10/10

10. Positive Mental Health

Textbook: A Better Way to Think – H. Norman Wright

This was such an interesting course.

The textbook explains how our mental health chemically affects our physical health, and lists examples and steps for turning around negative thought processes to subsequently improve physical symptoms.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and learning about the biochemical processes that go on in our minds.

The only downside to the book during the course is that it was extremely difficult to take notes on. Mostly because it read more like a novel than a textbook, and there was no index to refer to at the end.

My rating: 7/10

11. Diet and Nutrition

Textbook: Diet & Nutrition, A Holistic Approach – Rudolph Ballentine, M.D.

With textbook of 558 hefty pages, this was an extremely thorough course.

One of the things I noticed first is that the book had been most recently published in 2007. For this reason, I worried it would be outdated. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

In detail, it explains carbohydrates, protein, fat, and micronutrients; why we need them, how they’re assimilated, the pros and cons of different types of food based on how they’re chemically processed in the body, and much more.

It was the first source that woke me up to the fact that a Primal-style diet is not the healthiest way of eating.

But rather that a predominantly plant-based diet with an (optional) smaller amount of animal products was healthiest, for everything from weight to heart health and longevity.

Before then, I was dead set on a Primal diet being the best diet for health and longevity. It took a college textbook with 30 pages of convincing references and studies to sway my mind in the other direction.

After I completed this course, we took our first steps venturing back (the first time for Jonathan) toward plant-based eating.

The textbook also covers the Ayurvedic concepts of food as medicine in depth, which I loved.

My rating: 10/10

12. Chinese Herbology

Textbook: Planetary Herbology – Michael Tierra, C.A., N.D.

This course was a phenomenal overview of Chinese and Ayurvedic herbology and nutrition, the eastern mindset of the human body, a breakdown of the most common Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs, and some traditional eastern preparations and what they’re good for.

I don’t personally use the textbook for writing blog posts, seeing clients, or making herbal preparations, because I follow more of the western mindset of how herbs work in the human body. Still, though, the book is an extremely insightful read, and I highly recommend it.

My rating: 10/10

13. Aromatherapy

Textbook: Advanced Aromatherapy, The Science of Essential Oil Therapy – Kurt Schnaubelt, Ph.D.

I went into this course skeptically, thinking it would be a shallow guide to which oils to use for which complaints. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The textbook cites dozens of studies and breaks down the chemical components of essential oils, demonstrating how and why they work in the human body, and how they’ve been clinically demonstrated to do so.

If you’re an essential oil skeptic, I seriously recommend picking up a copy of this book.

Your mind will be blown.

I’m still not a huge fan of the way essential oils have been inflated to be the only form of alternative and complementary medicine most people use or know about. Or how much plant waste their processing causes.

But, those downsides don’t negate the fact that their effects in the body have been demonstrated in clinical studies and chemically make sense, which you will discover in this book.

My rating: 10/10

What I liked about Trinity’s Master Herbalist program overall:

I learned so much and now have many invaluable resources for writing quality blog posts, seeing clients, and making my own herbal preparations.

Also, the program counts as education credits toward becoming an AHG Registered Herbalist, a credential I am pursuing. So that’s definitely a plus.

What I disliked about the program overall:

There weren’t any teachers or lectures, so what you get out of the program is what you put into it.

Thankfully, I was homeschooled from preschool-12th grade, so this wasn’t a shock to me. It was still really difficult, though.

It was up to me to meticulously read through massive textbooks flooded with information, decide what to take notes on, and pass the exams with no guidance whatsoever.

Not only that, if you finished any exam with a grade lower than 85%, you couldn’t graduate, and there was only one opportunity to retake each exam – upon which the highest grade you could earn was 85% – again with no guidance whatsoever.

Thankfully, through really hard work and lots of studying, I passed and graduated. However, I feel sorry for anyone who isn’t used to self-led learning who paid for the program and couldn’t pass.

Trinity School of Natural Health isn’t regionally or nationally accredited. They have 3 independent “accreditations” from alternative health organizations, but these just confuse potential students and don’t hold any weight in the realm of higher education. This means a diploma from Trinity won’t get you far in the professional workforce.

My overall takeaway:

Skip Trinity School of Natural Health. What I learned was invaluable, but it’s a waste of time and money to pay for an education and diploma you can’t use to further your career. If you want to earn your degree in herbal medicine, pick a university that is institutionally accredited like the American College of Health Sciences.

For more information about herbal education I recommend, check out this post.

If you’re interested in learning the material in any of my courses, however, you can purchase the textbooks online.

I recommend:

Practical Herbalism – Philip Fritchey
Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 5th Edition – Phyllis A. Balch
Nutritional Herbology – Mark Pedersen
The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook – James Green, Herbalist
Diet & Nutrition, A Holistic Approach – Rudolph Ballentine, M.D.
Planetary Herbology – Michael Tierra, C.A., N.D.
Advanced Aromatherapy, The Science of Essential Oil Therapy – Kurt Schnaubelt, Ph.D.

Lastly, for more information about higher education for alternative, complementary, and integrative health careers, see this post.

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